Adaptation In A New Team - Essay Example

Adaptation In A New Team The article discussed the process and the situation in which a stranger finds himself when he approaches a new group. The in-group, of which the stranger intends to assimilate in, has its own peculiar worldview that is foreign to him. This is so because individuals interpret the world as he sees it. That worldview is often incoherent, inconsistent and only partially clear due to the fact that man is disinterested with the details of his world and is often contented to the ready-made standardized cultural pattern handed to him. This is magnified in a group whose cultural patterns differ from the stranger. The stranger himself has his own cultural pattern of interpreting the world that is different from the group he is trying to assimilate it. Initially, the new group may be taken as a point of inquiry to the stranger as things are all new to him. In the early process of assimilation, the stranger may be looked upon as suspect as he does not subscribe to the peculiarities and history of which the group has been formed even if that history is accessible to him. It is because such peculiarities and history is not an integral part of the stranger’s personal background that he is having a hard time interpreting them according to the interpretive language that he knows. This difference in cultural pattern, environment, and even language is the barrier that excludes the approaching stranger. Until such time when the stranger fully grasped the cultural pattern of this new group can he only adapt to this new cultural pattern and be accepted as part of the group. The effort of the stranger, however, to understand the peculiarities and orientation of the new group is not a guarantee that he will be accepted in the group nor will he continue to find desirability to become a part of such group. The process of being taken as one of the members of the in-group can be tough and prone to misunderstanding. While the in-group may think of their gesture as a provision of social shelter to the stranger, the stranger does not take it in this manner as he will find the new group incoherent and a problematic situation where he is having a hard time understanding and coping. But when the time comes that the stranger has already understood the nuances of the group and that it is no longer a point of inquiry, then the stranger is no longer a stranger but a part of the inner group. I. Analysis of the article 400-500 The article primarily discussed that we as individuals, view the world from our own perspective and we are the center of it. Such perspective is not even coherent, consistent nor clear. We held such views not because we are being critical of the world around us but rather as a convenient way to adapt to the cultural pattern and environment imposed on us by our ancestors, society, government, and authority. The same perspective applies to a group where it also interprets the world according to on how the group sees it. Being such, groups eventually develop its own unique cultural pattern that an outsider or stranger may find difficult to adapt but will also eventually understand and being such, will no longer be a stranger but become a part of the group. This analysis, however, is a simplistic assessment on how groups assimilate its new members. It readily assumed that a dominant group will become an automatic interest to a minority which is the stranger and such dominant group will become a subject of interest or inquiry to the stranger. It also painted a subtle adversarial nature of an ingroup towards an outsider who has to understand its own cultural pattern to be accepted and can be reproached if the newcomer failed to do so. Personally, it sounds so high school and nowhere in the article can be found that in-groups can also be welcoming to a stranger. In the journal, the process which the stranger has to go through just to be accepted in a group has the subtlety of baptism by fire. The stranger cannot impose himself nor can he expect that his own orientation will be welcomed in the group but is forced to adapt or be reproached as disloyal. In the examples it used, such as the immigrants or the bridegroom of the girls prospective family, it automatically assumed that all efforts have to be made by the newcomer to be accepted. It failed to recognize that groups have also tendencies and also exerts effort to welcome its new members realizing the unfamiliarity of being a stranger. Companies have orientations and the even school has. On a micro-level, it failed to recognize the social aspect of introducing a newcomer that the group and the stranger may be acquainted without going through the birth of fire. Schuetz also painted a prejudiced world with the assumption that individuals see the world with him as the center of the universe and it being magnified in a group. While this may be true in some way that the assessment of the world has to come from individual’s perspective as he sees it, the article readily assumed that it is also the same in the case of another dimension in an individual's life. It is short of saying that the individual or group thinks that he or they are the only ones that is right and everybody has to be nice and agree with him or them. It just did not consider tolerance towards other which is the hallmark of a civilized society. II. Conclusion Upon checking the date of the publication of the journal, it is not surprising that the author wrote with such a simplistic view of society as it was published way back in 1944. This is not to underestimate the author but only to emphasize that Schuetz assessment of a stranger is no longer applicable in modern society. He may have written the way he wrote because the world was in conflict during his time (World War II) and as such, the timbre of his writing is exclusivist and defensive. It will be unfair however to judge his article under the scrutiny of a modern lens as it did not even have a glimpse to consider of how the world will be 65 years after he wrote. Suffice to say that Schuetz has provided the structure of the rituals on how groups traditionally accept its new member for future sociologists to build their studies upon. Read More